i know i know you have to wear leathers and look like a h*mo power ranger but with the rising cost of fuel i've been considering going for my bike licence and picking up a cheap bike. trouble is i know f*ck all about bikes, f*ck all about riding one and f*ck all about what they cost to run ect.
i wouldn't be the type for the race bike stuff i'm more a cruiser, i'd love a big harley but thats dreaming, simple 125 would do me, maybe an old honda or something then get a nice touring bike or something.
know a few of you on here ride bikes, what are the basic ins and outs? what do you have to do test wise these days? know you need a CBT, do you have to still take a theory test if you already hold a car licence? also what kinda money would i be looking at for the safety stuff, cheap first bike and rought road tax and insurance on something simple like a 125?
Don't piss about doing CBT and kicking around on a 125 until you pass your test, as you'll end up being limited to 33bhp for 2 years.
Book a week off work, stump up the 600 quid, and do direct access - a week of intensive training on a 500cc bike, test at the end of the week. If you pass, you get to ride anything you like.
Don't know how big you are (I gather you're a lanky streak of piss, though.....), so you'd look fairly crazy on a 125cc faux-Hardly.
If you really are into the Hardly thing, then you'd be as well doing the above DAS thing (Direct Access) and buying a used 883 'Sportster' (never has a name been more inappropriate).
Alternatively, there are loads of Jap. Hardly clones out there, which are significantly better bikes and lots cheaper, but don't have the same image. (Yamaha Virago 535, Honda Shadow for example)
To be honest, I think you'd get very bored very quickly of bikes like that and would be after a big retro bike or sports bike before too long.
I suspect by the time you've bought a bike, waterproofs, locks, ground anchors etc. you'd be waiting a while to save much cash. And there always seems to be *something* to tinker with one a bike (although that may say more about the bike owners I know than bikes in general), whilst there isn't really that aspect with most people's daily drivers, unless they happen to drive something stupidly fast or Italian ;).
Proper bikes cost proper money to run. Although it does very much depend on the mileage you do.
However, if you're planning on using a big bike every day, you'll be looking at a rear tyre every 4k miles at £120, chain and sprockets around every 12k miles at anything up to £100, and service intervals are rather short.... many bikes are on 3k or 4k minor and 6/8k intermediate.
They're not even fuel efficient - my VFR struggles to top 35mpg and drops below 30mpg with Mrs H on the back and luggage.
You don't have to wear leathers, there are plenty of alternatives but no matter what you wear vamp you're going to look like a h*mo :)
Neither did I, until I went to India. It soon became clear that the best way to get around various places was to hire a scooter. At first I never even wore a helmet, figuring that the speed of traffic is no greater than what I could achieve on my pushbike and I'd rarely wear a helmet doing that! Plus there's no law saying you have to wear one in most areas. One day I was lent an actual motorbike with gears and everything. It was a 180cc Bajaj Pulsar, nice looking bike. I quickly realised that motorbikes feel a lot more natural and stable than wobbly little scooters and once I got my head around changing gears and so-on it was a breeze.
Like you, I wasn't that turned on by the "sporty" nature of the Pulsar but I'd seen another Bajaj bike called an Avenger about the place so I tracked one down and hired that. It was a cruiser type bike and I found it a lot nicer to ride than the Pulsar. Once I was used to motorbikes I decided to try out one of these Royal Enfield Bullets (basically a 1955 bike that's still being made in India, or was until recently anyway) mainly because I love the sound of the engine. The ones I tried were poorly maintained and pigs to ride, plus I had to get used to changing gear with my right foot and the gearboxes are quite weird too, it's too easy to find a "neutral" gear between changes until you learn to tell by feel whether it's engaged it or not.
Eventually we decided it would be fun to cruise around India on one of these Enfields. We saw a reconditioned one in Pushkar with a big for sale sign on it. It was all kitted out for a road trip with huge cage type panniers on the back suitable for strapping backpacks to, it had a massive backrest for SWMBO's comfort and it had big high-rise cruiser type handlebars. And a *loud* exhaust :) This one was much much better to ride than the ones I'd hired - all the controls were much lighter and cooperative and on the open road those handlebars and the upgraded saddle made it much more comfortable. It was a great bike and we were so close to shipping it back to Blighty! Trouble was, it was only a 350cc and they have probably less power than a modern 125 so with the two of us and all our luggage on it, plus the Indian heat and the fact the engine is aircooled we had a few reliability issues on the way to Delhi where we'd get it shipped from so we just flogged it instead and got on a bus to Nepal.
Oh and it'd do something like 80 or 90 to the gallon so go for an Enfield if you want to save money on fuel! They're stylish (if you don't spec it up Israeli style like ours you might look like the policeman from Heartbeat) and the engines sound great too. Brand new from about 2 grand. Or in India brand new for about 700 quid. Ours, a
2001 model, cost 350 quid with the re-con and all the upgrades :)
I think you can just go and do an intensive one week course for about
700 quid and totally bypass the CBT, you will come out with a bikers license that means you can ride any power of bike. You also need to do another theory test, look on the DSA website as they have a couple of practice ones (which I passed both first time so they are quite simple). I think you will also need to do a hazard perception one as well. But DO IT SOON as they are making the whole process a lot more difficult in September or October so I have heard. SWMBO and I planned to do it for our birthdays (which are this weekend) but I haven't found a job yet and SWMBO is only working part time so we can't afford it :(
I think insurance and road tax is pretty cheap on the Enfields, you could probably get some kind of classic cover, I don't know. I did think about getting SWMBO a pink Virago 125 cruiser style bike which she could ride on a CBT. Insurance and road tax for that was pennies too. You need to get at least a decent helmet but I don't think anything more than some good jeans, jacket and hi-vis vest are necessary for round town. If I go back to India I will take a British helmet with me as the Made in India ones we got given with our Enfield were literally flexible and would've offered minimal protection. They were good for keeping the flies out of our faces though.
Actually I felt a lot safer riding in India than I would here. Motorists there are so much more aware of two wheelers because they form the majority of traffic. The road speeds are much lower and it's customary to have your horn blaring so everyone knows where everyone else is. In fact the horn stopped working at one stage on our bike and I felt so vulnerable because of it. Plus the weather is more predictable :)
I really want to get my license so I can go to other countries like New Zealand for example and ride around them on 2 wheels legally. In India it was no more than a couple of quid bribe if anyone asked if I had a license ;)
Weedy sounding engines though! And the modern Bullets "Electra" with their CNC machined, all alloy engines and left-foot gearchange sound s**te as well :S The original Bullet is the only bike I can think of that sounds better, IMHO, than a Harley.
Someone came round ours on a Moto Guzzi California the other day. I liked that one and it even sounded quite nice.
Honda CB125S was way better. Single cylinder, SOHC and it does 100mpg as well. I remember the day I'd done 120 miles on one tank, it spluttered empty just as I pulled in for petrol, so I had to paddle it across the garage forecourt to the pump. It took the full 1.2gall and cost £1.20! Best I got out of it was 80mph 12,000rpm on 2 occasions, it was 1000rpm into the green bit of the tacho, the green bit that comes after the red bit runs out at 11,000 (9,500 redline).
Modern sports bikes 500cc+ hardly manage 50mpg. My CJ250 was hard pushed to do more than 60mpg and most 250's will be still be the same, just go a bit quicker. Honda CB250RS single was supposed to do about
80mpg but I think that was when ridden like a granddad and they are all very old and past use by date now. Big cruisers won't do any better than 50mpg. Low frontal area but high drag coefficient, light weight but tend to accelerate quicker.
Get a LPG conversion, if you shop around you will pay about £1200 for a 4 cyl conversion. So it costs about same as a decent secondhand 125 or an unknown new one. 60p/L at M-way prices and about 50p/L from ASDA. There may come a day when it's cheaper to buy cylinders of duty free domestic propane and a hand pump to transfer it. You should tell customs and excise how much you use and send them a cheque for the duty.
i like that style bike, in black with all black leathers and a black helmet with a black visor (if your still allowed them? or is it just banks that banned the blacked out visors lol
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